* * * * *

The forests were rapidly changing colour except where pine and spruce stood darkly green amid the growing magnificence of maple and oak.  It was the intermediate season in which were neither winter nor summer sports, and John Penhallow enjoying the pageant of autumn rode daily or took long walks, exploring the woods, missing Leila and giving free wing to a mind which felt the yearning, never to be satisfied, to translate into human speech its bird-song of enjoyment of nature.

On an afternoon in mid-October he saw Mr. Rivers, to his surprise, far away on the bank of the river.  Well aware that the clergyman was rarely given to any form of exercise on foot, John was a little surprised when he came upon the tall, stooping, pallid man with what Ann Penhallow called the “eloquent” eyes.  He was lying on the bank lazily throwing stones into the river.  As John broke through the alders and red willows above him, he turned at the sound and cried, as John jumped down the bank, “Glad to see you, John!  I have been trying to settle a question no one can settle to the satisfaction of others or even himself.  You might give me your opinion as to who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews.  Origen gave it up, and Philo had a theory about Apollos, and there is Tertullian, that’s all any fellow knows; and so now I await your opinion.  What nobody knows about, anybody’s opinion is good about.”

John laughed as he said, “I don’t think I’ll try.”

“Did you ever read Hebrews, John?  The epistle I mean.”

“No.”

“Then don’t or not yet.  The Bible books ought to be read at different ages of a man’s life.  I could arrange them.  Your aunt reads to you or with you, I believe?”

“Yes—­Acts just now, sir.  She makes it so clear and interesting that it seems as if all might have happened now to some missionaries somewhere.”

“That is an art.  Some of the Bible stories require such help to make them seem real to modern folk.  How does, or how did, Leila take Mrs. Ann’s teachings?”

“Oh, Leila,” he replied, as he began to pitch pebbles in the little river, “Leila—­wriggled.  You know, she really can’t keep quiet, Mr. Rivers.”

“Yes, I know well enough.  But did what interested you interest Leila?”

“No—­no, indeed, sir.  It troubled Aunt Ann because she could not make her see things.  Usually at night before bedtime we read some of the Gospels, and then once a week Acts.  Every now and then Leila would sit still and ask such queer questions—­about people.”

“What kind of questions, John?” He was interested and curious.

“Oh, about Peter’s mother and—­I forget—­oh, yes, once—­I remember that because aunt did not like it and I really couldn’t see why.”

“Well, what was it?”

“She wanted to know if Christ’s brothers ever were married and if they had children.”

“Did she, indeed!  Well—­well!”